Why Side Hustles Suck & A Few That Actually Pay

Side Hustles Are Usually BS

I get all hot and bothered at what I perceive as business idiocy. AND I want all of us to make money instead of spending our lives earning for others.

So I experimented with 5 of the Most Popular Side Hustles — And What to Do Instead

Also Side Hustle Public Service Announcement: Nance, Karen, Kelli please for the love of all that is holy stop DMing me (and everyone else) about the “OPPORTUNITY” you have for me to sell essential oils in your MLM.

Ok, onto my other rant.

I was reading an infuriating article about side hustles as the way out of economic recession for the masses.

I won’t dox them because that’s rude and people should get face punched for posting anyones home online so a mob can ascend.

Said article included options for the everyman such as: dog walking, task rabbiting, online surveys, sperm donor (I mean really?!), online couponing, etc etc.

They said and I quote, “As a way to replace income from the jobs lost due to Covid-19 you can do any of these tasks.”

My immediate reaction was “ya, I’m sure selling organs could also help people short term pay their mortgage/rent.” But, is it sustainable, with growth potential, that doesn’t require your body all the time? That’s a hard no.

In reality, all most side hustles do is magic. Magic? What kind of magic you ask?

***** POOF weekend magically gone ****

Here’s the problem, those side hustles don’t pay enough, they aren’t scalable and they work like this:

Have to be there to do the work

Can’t multi-task

Declining pay as competition increases

Little to no skills accumulated to offset low pay

To prove my point, and since I apparently hate weekends, I spent mine seeing how much I could earn from the top listed side hustles above. I have been obsessed thinking about how to get more humans back to work and earning, which is the entire reason we created Unconventional Acquisitions. Want to get depressed? Here’s the results: (Spoiler: at the end I give you ways to ACTUALLY earn w/ side hustles).

Surveys:
I asked another masochistic friend to help me spend combined 12 painful hours finding and completing surveys. We made… $28.50. Now what will we spend our $2.375 cents an hour on??

Dog Walking:
Why hello, if you could see my face you'd totally trust me with your dog? Here’s the rub, I filled a profile out on Rover and got a grand total of 0 bookings for walks, belly rubs and home stays. We have a pup so honestly I thought this would be fun for him to have a bud. BUT HELLO WHO IS TRAVELING NOW? No one.

The average dog walker makes about $24k a year. The average salary in the US is $40k. Averages can be troubling but sorry Fido, not going to cut it.

Sperm Donor Needs Whole Section: Creeped Me Out.
Up-front disclaimer to the inevitable commentators. I love the idea of helping people have the family they always wanted… by choice. BUT what I don’t love is someone who needs money feeling they need to do this to earn. That’s just a weird Sci-Fi movie.

First of all I pulled this directly off the state of California donor site. They require donors to be 5’7 and have a college degree. No college degree, no kid worth having? Wow.

Second, you get $125 for each literal child you provide then they charge $900-1000 for it and another $200-400 to inseminate. That’s a big margin.

Third, they require a childhood photo of you and then post it on the internet?? Eek.

IDEAS THAT DON’T REQUIRE YOUR BODILY FLUIDS
Let’s get to solutions. To start, I love HORIZONTAL INCOME. Passive income is a fallacy because not even the stock market or bonds are entirely passive, everything requires a little work. But horizontal income does exist and is to be sought after; it is income that you can layer and stack that requires minimal work, and not correlated to your having to work set hours.

Bigger Idea:

1. Online Course Creation
   You too can play an expert, on the internet. In all seriousness, I think creating a course or writing a guide is something everyone can do in some aspect of their life. There is a niche for everything on the internet and if you get creative you can earn from what you learn. We launched a course Unconventional Acquisitions (largely goes to charity) that made $30k+ pre-launch because we knew that people didn’t know how to buy businesses. Turns out I’m terrible at many things but know how a thing or two about small company buying for us little guys. So we made a course on how to buy a small profitable business in 90 days that does $100k-$1M+ in profit. This course helps people use seller financing to put little or no money down and become an owner, create another income stream, or replace their job with a new title as CEO.

Here’s why it works:
Tangible result (buy a business)
Monetary linkage ($100k+ in profit)
Timeline to set expectations (90 days)

Couple points of advice:
Set the price higher than you think you can
Share it with your friends and family (don’t be shy)
Pre-sell before you create to see if there is real demand
We use thinkific, as our platform for one stop course creation, I like it

These guys all make a couple hundred k (w/o huge audiences) from courses DVassallo, Making Sense of Cents, Neville, Nate Mcalister.

2. Buy Your Passive Income (Small Businesses)
   It’s wild (read dumb) how much we idealize startup founders and their grind instead of thinking about our business dealings as income streams. That’s why I try to beat you all over the head with thinking about acquiring businesses, not so you’ll take the course, but because I believe it will change your life and it’s not nearly as difficult as we’re made to believe. Whether it’s add on acquisitions to your business or your first time in the Capitan’s chair, the opportunity has never been more interesting or available. It is hard work, but so is a startup, where 90% fail and the average entrepreneur salary is less than $40k a year. #notkillingit

Couple easy, low $ examples I did:

I bought into a Podcast Production Business for $10k, that generates $130k+ in profit, I own 40% of that rev stream, so I broke even in a few months. (This is what happens when you use your skillset as leverage in your deals).

I bought into a media company that’ll do $220k+ in profit this year for the cost of 1 quarters profit because they needed help monetizing further and I know how.

Other Unconventional Acquisitions Students:

Bought a laundromat for $70kish (used an equipment loan so no cash of his own), that does $50k a year, they’ll breakeven year 1 but with additional revenue streams added maybe sooner.

Bought into a lodge for $1.5M that does $480k profit a YEAR. Used a traditional mortgage for a small part of it and the rest seller financed. That price includes the real estate of the property.

I’m going to write a piece on the fact that 60% of small businesses who shut for Covid-19 have shut permanently (link here). There is a huge opportunity to buy out assets from those ready to move on. Next week we have an interesting one on this topic.

3. Full list of 29 other ideas for passive income on www.contrarianthinking.substack.com
   If you do any of these comment them and I’ll be your first customer and share them with the group. Once you start executing you won’t be able to stop!

And just like that, three ideas you can do in the Covid-19 world, that don’t require organ donation and just may beat what you currently make in your job.
We are all in this together to get America back to work, to become the masters of our own fate. I’m here for you. As we say in Spanish, ADELANTE (forward)!!

If you have questions or want to ideate more just put them in the comments. I’m happy to look at your deals, give feedback on due diligence and deal flow. The Question is simply: WHAT WILL YOU DO AS YOUR NEXT INCOME STREAM?

Others will answer and so will I!

Question Everything,

Codie

I’m experimenting with Twitter (@codie_sanchez) talking about Contrarian arbitrage; investing, income stacking, biz building unconventionally, so let’s connect. Or follow along at www.contrarianthinking.substack.com